Reading the Markstrom-Adam set al. Paper

The Markstrom-Adams et al. paper is an interesting study of the role of religion in identity development.  The rest of this handout consists of notes to help you better understand the paper.  

1.  There is a long review of the literature regarding the nature of “fidelity” in Erikson’s original writing about identity. You can see how the concept of fidelity is related to but broader than the concept of “commitment” which we talked about in class.  Notice the discussion of the function of fidelity in adolescence (p. 455) and the connection of fidelity to loyalty (p. 455), which is an important component of adolescent friendship. 

2.  Markstrom-Adams makes the case that fidelity is connected to religious faith (p. 456), particularly minority religious faith, and to church attendance (p. 457).  See argues strongly that minority religious faith (which she later argues holds for members of the LDS religion) is an identity characteristic thrust upon you by society and through socialization (pp. 456- 457). 

3.  Finally, Markstrom-Adams argues that fidelity, being an index of commitment, should be related to the identity statuses of Foreclosure and Achievement.  The reason for that, if it is not clear from the paper, is that both these identity statuses are high in commitment, which is how identity researchers like Jim Marcia operationalized the concept of fidelity.  So committing to adult social roles prematurely without exploration (Foreclosure) or after a process of exploration (Achievement) each involves a high degree of commitment.

4.  Markstrom-Adams’ hypothesis is that members of the LDS religion, being religious minorities, will score higher on commitment (more likely be Foreclosed or Achieved) than Protestants and Catholics, who are members of the religious majority.  It is also predicted that high church attendance will be associated with higher levels of commitment.  

5.  Logan-area adolescents, hand picked by their respective church leaders, were participants.  Participants filled out the EOM-EIS (which you have) and answered questions about their church attendance.  The questionnaire specifies identity statues for each of two domains:  Interpersonal (e.g., marriage, lifestyle, friendships, etc.) and Ideological (e.g., religion, occupation, politics, etc.)

6.  Table 1 show the overall means for identity statuses in Ideological and Interpersonal domains.  Look at the adjustment means (adjusted to control for differences in ages between the groups) and notice how much higher the Ideological and Interpersonal Forecloseure means are for LDS than Non-LDS adolescents.  

7.  Table 2 shows the relation between identity status and religious status and church attendance.  Again check the adjusted means and notice how much higher Interpersonal Foreclosure means and lower for Ideological Diffusion nores are for weekly church goers than those who don’t.  Interestingly, read on p. 462 (the only full paragraph) how church attendance and an ACHIEVED identity is opposite for LDS than Non-LDS adolescents.  You can safely ignore the rest of the results section.

8.  The essence of Markstrom-Adams’ discussion can be seen on p. 467 second paragraph where she notes that commitment pressures exist not only in the Interpersonal domain but also in the Ideological one among LDS adolescents, with respect to their dating habits.